David Schiefelbein: Poll suggests it’s time to jettison Jetton

Thursday

Mar 27, 2008 at 12:01 AMMar 27, 2008 at 7:26 PM

Should the House remove Speaker Rod Jetton from his post for slipping the so-called “village law” into an omnibus bill last session? That question drew a markedly favorable response from readers who participated in last week’s online opinion poll.

David Schiefelbein

Should the House remove Speaker Rod Jetton from his post for slipping the so-called “village law” into an omnibus bill last session?

That question drew a markedly favorable response from readers who participated in last week’s online opinion poll.

Only 20 percent (100 votes) of the 494 poll-takers thought the idea the question suggests was a bad one and checked “"No, don’t be ridiculous."

The other 80 percent thought Jetton’s move a bad one.

Sixty percent (295 votes) answered "Yes, it was a despicable thing to do." That's a pretty strong challenge to the most powerful figure in Missouri's House of Representatives.

Personally, I don't think it strong enough, and if I were to vote in these polls (I'm more interested in what readers think than casting votes myself), I certainly would have selected the final choice.

The response "Only if lynching is still illegal," drew 20 percent and just one less vote than the answer that supported Jetton's maneuver.

And maneuver is exactly what it was.

The speaker of the House controls what bills make it to the floor for debate by the state’s representatives.

If Jetton had operated on the up-and-up, he certainly would have believed in the legislation’s merits and put it on the floor for debate after steering it through the appropriate committee. Running the House has its perks.

But he did not do that.

Why? No one, including the Camden County cheerleader and Jetton's office, has answered that.

Why? Because there’s no way a bill that circumvents local control over growth and development would have ever been passed by the House, much less its counterpart in the system of checks and balances, the Senate.

And that, Susie Cheerleader, is why we say Jetton "slipped" the Village law into the end-of-session omnibus bill.

Susie, it's not just Democrats that used the word "slipped". I said it before and I said it again.

More importantly, this is not a partisan issue – Jetton's maneuver betrayed every Missourian.

Jetton should be immediately removed from his post as Speaker of the House.

Side note on Jetton's “lazy Missourians” comment: To date, we have not received a single response on our offer to trade Jetton to the people of Mexico for a couple cases of cold Coronas, so I’ll drop the offer to one cold case.

I'll be out checking the mailbox for beers, so e-mail me at editor@lakesunleader.com.